Sony's 'Real-time tracking' is a big leap forward for autofocus

One of the biggest frustrations when taking pictures is discovering that your photos are out of focus. Over the past few years, camera autofocus systems from every manufacturer have become much more sophisticated, but they've also become more complex. If you want to utilize them to their full potential, you're often required to change settings for different scenarios.

The autofocus system introduced in Sony’s a6400 as well as in the a9 via a firmware update aims to change that, making autofocus simple for everyone from casual users to pro photographers. And while all manufacturers are aiming to make autofocus more intelligent and easier to use, our first impressions are that in practice, Sony’s new ‘real-time tracking’ AF system really does take away the complexity and removes much of the headache of autofocus so that you can focus on the action, the moment, and your composition. Spoiler: if you'd just like to jump to our real-world demonstration video below that shows just how versatile this system can be, click here.

When I initiated focus on this skater, he was far away and tiny in the frame, so the a9 used general subject tracking to lock on to him at first. It then tracked him fully through his run, switching automatically to Face Detect as he approached. This seamless tracking, combined with a 20fps burst, allowed me to focus on my composition and get the lighting just right, without having to constrain myself by keeping an AF point over his face. For fast-paced erratic motion, good subject tracking can make or break your shot.

So what is ‘Real-time tracking’? Simply now called ‘Tracking’, it’s Sony’s new subject tracking mode. Subject tracking allows you to indicate to your camera what your subject is, which you then trust it to track. Simply place your AF point over the subject, half-press the shutter to focus, and the camera will keep track of it no matter where it moves to in the frame - by automatically shifting the AF points as necessary. The best implementation we'd seen until recently was Nikon's 3D Tracking on its DSLRs. Sony's new system takes some giant leaps forward, replacing the 'Lock-on AF' mode that was often unreliable, sometimes jumping to unrelated subjects far away or tracking an entire human body and missing focus on the face and eyes. The new system is rock-solid, meaning you can just trust it to track and focus your subject while you concentrate on composing your photos.

You can trust it to track and focus your subject while you concentrate on composing your photos

What makes the new system better? Real-time tracking now uses additional information to track your subject - so much information, in fact, that it feels as if the autofocus system really understands who or what your subject is, making it arguably the 'stickiest' system we've seen to date.

Subject tracking isn't just for action. I used it even in this shot. Good subject tracking, like Sony's 'Real-time tracking', keeps track of your subject for you, freeing you up to try many different poses and framings quickly. Most of these 20 shots were captured in under 19 seconds, without ever letting off the AF-ON button. The camera never lost our model, not even when her face went behind highly-reflective glass. The seamless transitioning between Eye AF and general subject tracking helps the AF system act in such a robust manner. Not having to think about focus allows one to work faster, get more poses and compositions, so you can get to the shot you're happy with faster. Click here or on any thumbnail above to launch a gallery to scroll through all 20 images.

Pattern recognition is now used to identify your subject, while color, brightness, and distance information are now used more intelligently for tracking so that, for example, the camera won’t jump from a near subject to a very far one. What's most clever though is the use of machine-learning trained face and eye detection to help the camera truly understand a human subject.

What do we mean when we say ‘machine-learning'? More and more camera - and smartphone - manufacturers are using machine learning to improve everything from image quality to autofocus. Here, Sony has essentially trained a model to detect human subjects, faces, and eyes by feeding it hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of images of humans. These images of faces and eyes of different people, kids, adults, even animals, in different positions have been previously tagged (presumably with human input) to identify the eyes and faces – this allows Sony's AF system to 'learn' and build up a model for detecting human and animal eyes in a very robust manner.

Machine learning... allows Sony's AF system to detect human and animal eyes in a very robust manner

This model is then used in real-time by the camera's AF system to detect eyes and understand your subject in the camera’s new ‘real-time tracking’ mode. While companies like Olympus and Panasonic are using similar machine-learning approaches to detect bodies, trains, motorcyclists and more, Sony's system is the most versatile in our initial testing.

Real-time tracking's ability to seamlessly transition from Eye AF to general subject tracking means that even when there was an eye to track up until this perfect candid moment, your subject will still remain in focus when the eye disappears - so you don't miss short-lived moments such as this one. Note: this image is illustrative and was not shot using Sony's 'Tracking' mode.

What does all of this mean for the photographer? Most importantly, it means you have an autofocus system that works reliably in almost any situation. Reframe your composition to place your AF point over your subject, half-press the shutter, and real-time tracking will collect pattern, color, brightness, distance, face and eye information about your subject so comprehensively it can use all that to keep track of your subject in real-time. This means you can focus on the composition and the moment. There is no longer a need to focus (pun intended) on keeping your AF point over your subject, which for years has constrained composition and made it difficult to maintain focus on erratic subjects.

There is no need to focus on keeping your AF point over your subject, which for years has constrained composition and made it difficult to focus on erratic subjects

The best part of this system is that it just works, seamlessly transitioning between Eye AF and Face Detect and ‘general’ subject tracking. If you’re tracking a human, the camera will always prioritize the eye. If it can’t find the eye, it’ll prioritize its face. Even if your subject turns away so that you can't see their face, or is momentarily occluded, real-time tracking will continue to track your subject, instantly switching back to the face or eye when they're once again visible. This means your subject is almost always already focused, ready for you to snap the exact moment you wish to capture.

The tracking mode lets you specify a subject and it'll prioritize their eye, switching to face detection if it loses the eye and treating them as a generic subject to track if they, for instance, turn their head away from the camera. Click on the images and follow the entire sequence to see how the camera focuses on my subject no matter where she walks to in the frame.

One of the best things about this behavior is how it handles scenes with multiple people, a common occurrence at weddings, events, or even in your household. Although Eye AF was incredibly sticky and tracked the eyes of the subject you initiated AF upon, sometimes it would wander to another subject, particularly if it looked away from the camera long enough (as toddlers often do). Real-time tracking will simply transition from Eye AF to general subject tracking if the subject looks away, meaning as soon as they look back, the camera's ready to focus on the eye and take the shot with minimal lag or fuss. The camera won't jump to another person simply because your subject looked away; instead, it'll stick to it as long as you tell it to, by keeping the shutter button half-depressed.

Performance-wise it's the stickiest tracking we've ever seen...

And performance-wise it's the stickiest tracking we've ever seen, doggedly tracking your subject even if it looks different to the camera as it moves or you change your position and composition. Have a look at our real world testing with an erratic toddler, with multiple people in the scene, below. This is HDMI output from an a6400 with 24mm F1.4 GM lens, and you can see focus is actually achieved and maintained throughout most of the video by the filled-in green circle at bottom left of frame.

Real-time tracking isn't only useful for human subjects. Rather, it simply prioritizes whatever subject you place under the autofocus point, be it people or pets, food, a distant mountain, or a nearby flower. It's that versatile.

In a nutshell, this means that you rarely have to worry about changing autofocus modes on your camera, no matter what sort of photography you’re doing. What’s really exciting is that we’ll surely see this system implemented, and evolved, in future cameras. And while nearly all manufacturers are working toward this sort of simple subject tracking, and incorporating some elements of machine learning, our initial testing suggests Sony’s new system means you don’t have to think about how it works; you can just trust it to stick to your subject better than any system we’ve tested to date.

Addendum: do I need a dedicated Eye AF button anymore?

There’s actually not much need to assign a custom button to Eye AF anymore, since real-time tracking already uses Eye AF on your intended subject. In fact, using real-time tracking is more reliable, since if your subject looks away, it won’t jump to another face in the scene as Eye AF tends to do. If you’ve ever tried to photograph a kids' birthday party or a wedding, you know how frustrating it can be when Eye AF jumps off to someone other than your intended subject just because he or she looked away for long enough. Real-time tracking ensures the camera stays locked on your subject for as long as your shutter button remains half-depressed, so your subject is already in focus when he or she looks back at the camera or makes that perfect expression. This allows you to nail that decisive, candid moment.

Comments

Technology like this is why all manufacturers are moving to mirrorless. I am generally of the opinion that differences between high end cameras are overblown, but in this case, it will truly make a photographer's job easier. It will help inexperienced photographers get shots that they wouldn't have got and enable experienced photographers to focus on composition and anticipate movement better versus worrying about tracking. It will only be a matter of time before it becomes available on high end full frame cameras and anyone that does not offer it will be considered obsolete. Now this I can see as a reason for moving from a DSLR to mirrorless.

I do kind of wonder about the implications of advancing AF on brand obsolescence.

Namely on where Pentax goes in the future. Their AF system is rather behind the times on their DSLR bodies. I'm curious to see what they do in the next 3-5 years. And Ricoh has been emphatic in the past few years during interviews that they have no desire to go mirrorless. So they are stuck between inferior AF systems in their DSLRs (compared to other DSLR brands) and no desire to move to mirrorless where it might be easier to advance.

"Now this I can see as a reason for moving from a DSLR to mirrorless."

Mirrorless have offered some advantages for quite some time, and in the past couple of years the few remaining disadvantages (e.g. AF performance). have been eliminated.

This advance likely puts mirrorless ahead of the flagship dSLRs in all respects, IMO. It may take a while for different brands and models to achieve feature parity with what Sony is doing here, but it's pretty clear that new ground has been broken.

Sony’s popular α7R III and α7 III full-frame cameras will both receive enhanced Real-time Eye AF performance with the upcoming firmware version 3.0. This will be available in AF-C mode with a simple half-press of the shutter button. Real-Time Eye AF for animals (i) will also be available.

The a7/R III will receive the ability to seamlessly transition between Eye/Face detect and general subject tracking, but they'll still be using the older Lock-on AF subject tracking algorithms, which we've repeatedly criticized as sometimes/often being unreliable (depending on the body).

Sadly, this also means the a7 III and a7R III aren't losing the unusable 'Center Lock-on AF' mode for video, so video tracking will only be improved for the a9 and a6400 at this time.

rishi, is that official? as micki, i was under impression eye af tracking is coming as update in spring for a7iii (r) with basically same (or close to) level of speed and accuracy, as we have in a9 version.so, please, verify that, so users won't be in dilemma about this.end most important: will all this super duper tracking works in high fps mode with adapted lens?

I look at the gallery of fashion portraits linked above, and when I use DPR's "loupe" tool to check 1:1 focus on the woman's closest eye, I see that not very many of the frames are as sharp or as "bang-on" in-focus as other photo samples from many (or even most?) of DPR's other sample galleries.

I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, here--just looking for guidance as a potential buyer of an A6400 (and not as a photographic expert, by any means): am I being too critical? Too picky? Does the linked gallery represent more-or-less "perfect" focus performance as far as experts are concerned?

Or: am I looking at these photographs wrong in some way? Should they appear sharper than I'm seeing them, for some reason? I'm just browsing on a recent MacBook Pro in Google Chrome.

The answer would help me to know if this new autofocus technology is actually working as advertised, here, and is something worth purchasing.

Competition is the engine that drives development. Congratulations to Sony for making such enormous strides. Give the engineers a nice bonus then concentrate on the next amazing breakthrough. When I started this hobby almost 50 years ago things were so much more difficult. What a great time to enjoy the hobby!

Olympus, Panasonic, Nikon, Canon, and Sony are working on this. I am sure Fuji will too. in two years they will all be as good as anyone needs. Sony used to have the worst focusing, and now better than most. I am sure everyone is reverse engineering each others code.

I still think DFD despite being behind today has the most promise and brightest future though (sensors are cheaper to make too).

Disagree. It’s not just the “code” - it’s hardware too. A9 was released two years ago and even today, with the previous firmware, the others companies couldn’t copy the performance. I suspect the secret is the “stack sensor”, something only Sony has. And the performance with stacks sensors is beyond autofocus: FPS, with autofocus, is much better too.

The code is not so easilymreverse engineered I believe. This kind of code requires intimate knowledge of the hardware. They may be able to get a sense of how it works, but not to the point where they could directly implement the algorithms without re-engineering them for their own hardware.

Remember almost everything Sony uses was copied from other manufactures. Samsung was the first to use BSI sensors in ILCs. Sony paid big $ to license OSPDAF from Aptina. Sony copied 5 axis IBIS from Olympus. In this case it appears Sony copied and improved what Olympus started. Panasonic is working on it too. Sadly, Sony said many recent cameras will not get this feature too. I just read the A7Riii will not get it, and that is a $3000 camera. It is really just dependent on code and the CPU. But any camera with a fast CPU will have this in the coming years. At least any Panasonic, Olympus or Sony.

Unfortunately this is wishful thinking, if Olympus, Panasonic or any other brand could just “reverse engineer” code/hardware then every camera would have had dual pixel AF from Canon, the $3000 m43 Olympus would have Sonys latest AF, and the Panasonic FF would have every technology in existence given its price point and size.

Neither Minolta nor Sony had 5 axis stabilization until years after Olympus.Sony abandoned the Minolta solution in favor of a copy of Olympus 5 axis. The most recent SLT didn't even have the Minolta type IS.

Your STUPID argument is like say "powered" is not the key when talking about manned flight and the Wright brothers. OR like saying steam engines are the same as gasoline engines. 5 axis IBIS is very different than the much less effective IS Minolta used.

Here are facts. Minolta invented an outdated form of IBIS. Sony has abandoned it. Olympus uses a greatly more effective 5 axis IBIS. Sony abandoned their out dated IS and tried to copy Olympus.

He’s just a m43 troll. In his mind m43 strengths are IMPOSSIBLE to “reverse engineer with code” but everything that APS-C/FF/MF is just “code” and Olympus/Panasonic could do it if they wanted to. Such logic, much wow.

Just like Fuji fanboys, short people tend to be more aggressive.

Incoming “over compensating” comment. The typical response of a cornered TSB (Tiny Sensor Boy). The reality is FF users are under no illusion that FF is the best at everything, we know m43 has the best IBIS and the best video options due to the relation between sensor size/data throughout and processing power. The opposite cannot he said for m43 and Fuji fanboys overly aggressive users.

Haha. Minolta invented an outdated version of IBIS. Outdated today. Revolutionary when they invented it.

And by the way the thing about wright brothers wasn’t powered flight.. the thing about wright brothers was sustainable heavier than air flight.. of course the wright brothers were not the first to invent powered flight (they had powered blimps for at least a century before the wright brothers figured out how to create a heavier than air flying machine.

IBIS was developed by Minolta as Mike Ran said. It first appeared in Minolta's bridge cameras and was then ported to the 7D and 5D. Sony inherited the patent when they bought Minolta.

Olympus developed their IBIS independently and debuted it after Sony in 2007, as did Pentax. The Olympus IBIS was not 5 axis, it was 3 axis. 5 axis debuted in 2009 in the ELP-1.

There is no functional difference between the way the Minolta/Sony/Pentax systems work. They all offer x, y and rotational compensation. 5 axis adds virtual compensation for pitch and yaw without an IS lens attached and actual compensation with an IS lens. There are claims that as part of the financial package that Nikon and Sony prepared to save Olympus there was information sharing that included 5 axis. The extent of that sharing is not known.

Cameras are the result of collaboration. Open aperture metering was developed by Pentax, the electronic mount by Rollei, the control wheel on your Olympus by Canon.

So the facts,Minolta (not Sony) created something great decades agoIt is now outdated and no one makes new cameras with it. Sony abandoned it years ago. Sony copied Olympus 5 axis IBISOlympus created something that turned the Minolta IS into a "typewriter".

I wonder if the a7 III or a7rIII will get an update for this real time autofocus? Would make the a7rIII much more interesting since I like the tracking that’s accurate but I’d prefer more megapixels over a super high frame rate. 8-10 FPS works great for me.

"this allows Sony's AF system to 'learn' and build up a model for detecting human and animal eyes in a very robust manner"... In year 2029 Sony's AF system will become self-aware... The Terminator becomes reality.

Agree this isn’t True AI. True AI would be taking every picture YOU take, analyzing the frame after the fact and updating the detection algorithms. This is just likely using a pre-trained neural network to identify subjects in the scene..

A separate topic, but it seems like Sony is utilizing AI to optimize performance of adapted lenses. Put a lens you’ve never used on an MC-11 and it sucks for a few minutes until it “learns” how to control the AF better. That’s AI...

Adobe said AI was used to train the behavior of the Auto button in the raw converter. But, there is no AI in Photoshop. AI was used to generate part of the code for the Auto button. If you press the auto button. Make some adjustments on top of that and then tell ACR to discard all the changes. If you press auto you will get the same thing as before. There is no "learning" going on. It pays no attention to what you do. But the Auto button definitely produces a "smarter' result than it used to.

The demo in the video looks excellent, but to me, these automatic/dynamic modes are irrelevant. Since the Nikon D700 (so that's more than ten years ago) I'm using one AF mode (single-point AF-C with back-button focusing) and that works reliably and perfectly for any subjects (granted, I do not shoot sports).

Sure, these new intelligent modes will help the majority of people, but I rather don't perform another action (switching modes) and get used to one predictable approach so that it becomes second nature.

I miss those days where everyone would ride their bicycles to school. Now it's all these cars with automatic transmissions and two too many doors. Making dedicated parking stalls for electric vechicles only, geeze.

In other words, a lot of focus-lock-recompose and activating/deactivating of AF. It's really like you are operating a machine. In comparison to Sony's real-time AF, that's a tedious, annoying way of shooting. To me, Sony's real-time AF system works like how the human eye focuses. You don't have to tell your eye when to stop or start focusing. You can just look at a subject, and your eye just continuously focuses, no matter where your subject moves. I find this to be a much more natural way of shooting, rather than just using a single point and doing a lot of back-button pushing.

Sony reminds me of Canon back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, when they entered the AF SLR era with the EOS system. They had superior technology than Nikon. Nikon had led the market during the manual SLR era, but when the market shifted to AF SLRs, Canon led the way in technology. By the mid 1990s, Canon EOS had overtaken Nikon F. Now, in the mirrorless era, it is Sony that has taken over the "superior technology" role that was once held by Canon. It is Sony that is now leading the way. And it is now CaNikon that are lagging behind. And just like Nikon tried to get by on their name heritage, existing usership and established system (from a previous era) when they were trying to fend off Canon EOS, it is now both CaNikon that are trying to doing that against Sony. I remember Nikon users saying, "No one in their right mind would ever leave Nikon for upstart, unproven Canon EOS." They were obviously wrong.

It’s like Canon, Nikon, and Sony were all playing a 3 way mirrorless football game. Sony scored 35 points in the first half. Then, at the start of the second half, Nikon scores a touchdown, and Canon a field goal. Then Sony runs the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown.

Th difference is the game never really ends. Sony has a huge lead. Canon and Nikon have a lot of catching up to do. But Sony still has their first team on the field.

Anyone wondering where do we go from here? Put the camera on a motorized tripod, initiate tracking on a given player in game or the bride in a wedding, keep tracking and taking pictures of him / her throughout the event. Control of panning and zoom included.

Send you camera out to take photos while you sit down with a nice cup of tea and watch a movie. Disagree with th argument about this as a solution for those missed out of focussed shot frustrations. Missing the odd one is information telling you something that might be helpful to Improving your photography. I don’t want a computer to compensate for my shortcomings in such an opaque way.

Fatdeeman I don’t think it’s a problem to use autofocus, but plenty, including myself still use MF, sometimes for creative effects such as just off. I don’t see a problem with either position but there seems to be a progressive convergence between cameras and cell phones where the discourse is all about he tech. It would be really nice to talk about photography and reflect that this new tech has not in truth accomplished anything new in terms of photography. You may have seen Don McCullin using his manual focus film camerasand his canon 5D. His work is impactful and not predicated on clever software tricks , just real photography in spite of, not because of his gear.

I also use MF. Despite Sony cameras having very good AF abilities since at least as far back as the A6000, I initially invested in Sony just to use the bodies with my collection of MF lenses.

I just feel that there is room for both things without people needing to attack modern AF.

I've gotten plenty of action shots with my manual glass with careful pre-focusing and timing and it has worked well but I'm under no illusion that it doesn't limit my ability to rapidly change composition and account for actively varying subject distance etc.

The beauty of systems like this is that you're free to concentrate not just on the subject but what's in the background and the peripheries etc too. You can move you camera around to experiment with framing on the fly and you won't lose focus on your subject. You can follow subjects as they move past you, even if it's in an arc with a constantly changing distance and pick and choose when you think the composition/perspective/subject is optimal.

Fatdeeman - I don’t think we are disagreeing for the most part. The point of difference is the actual need for such tech. We do agree that it is impressive , but necessary? The evidence is by your own experience and in the historical body of photography that no more is or can accomplished via such tech that will add to the artistic endeavour. Cameras have become more and more gimmicky and the degreee of user engagement in the process is moving from active to passive because a host of clever software takes care of things you no longer have to. I appreciate there are some highly specific situations such as high speed photography where people are more likely to fail, and for those hail to the machine. However the current discourse on camera tech is all about creating a need to create a sale. The truth is for the most part the camera we have in our bag is more than good enough, and likely better than most users.

Real-time tracking ... I like that term. I've never had a camera that could really track even though all the reviewers raved about how some high end cameras could keep up. I use a D850 and I still lose focus. I thought it was just me.

Yes, the dog shots from the previous gallery were mostly off. And, perhaps because of electronic shutter(?), the ones that looked focused had weird motion blur at 1/2000s. And a big difference in seeing a very small shot in a video compared to editing and viewing at 100%.

This is a video of the liveview or EVF. It does not matter if it "looks" in or out of focus as that's not the final output. What matters is what happens when you push the shutter button and the image is recorded.

This would be a much better example of sony's "real time tracking" if sharp in focus pictures were included from the video of the tracking session posted with the article. As there are no pictures posted from the video session demonstrating "real time tracking" we can only assume the end result was....lacking.

Without examples from the session the whole post becomes simply promotional material. Look how good it looks in the viewfinder! But where are the pictures? Crickets.......

Where are the pictures Rishi? The only really sharp picture you have (of the wedding cake).... was it even taking with an A9 or A6400? (I assume it was taken with something else, maybe even a canon as you stripped the exif data)

An article about AF with no pictures from the subject video is worthless and nothing more than a fluff piece.

and this is exactly why I left Canon after 15 years and switched to Sony last summer with the a7iii. As a portrait shooter, their eye AF is a game changer and is unmatched. Pretty embarrassing for camera companies like Canon and Nikon that an electronics company, best known for their TVs and game consoles has blown past them both in AF and sensor technology in just 5 years.

@Dexter: It is not embarassing. As you say, Sony is an electronics company. Sensors have always been their strength. It is a logical progression for them. Canon's problem is that they cannot justify upgrading their sensor fab facilities since they are only selling into a shrinking ILC (and some dedicated video) market, whereas Sony is selling sensors to a far larger market. And Nikon is too small and niche to compete.

It's impressive for sure! Although I would argue that the actual benefit of having these fancy modes is minimal. People shot for decades with (by now) laughable AF performance with excellent results. Nikon/Canon have probably (hopefully?) other priorities, and they for sure have their strengths over Sony.

However, these AF modes surely result in a lot of buzz around the cameras, so that sells too. Then the question is whether Nikon/Canon have their priorities right. Or Sony is computationally more experienced/stronger of course.

I haven’t had face detect tracking miss an eye at f1.2 yet, why do I need a special square around an eye when it hits there anyway? The answer is, you don’t. Nothing wrong with it, but in camera there is no need for it.

Oh my ... you're still on the A7III? Get with the times, man. As per the article, you need to be on the latest firmware A9 or the brand new A6400 to get the good stuff. The A7III is one of those old-timey cameras with the "often unreliable" tracking, a relic of the days when Sony was still making the non-simple frustrating autofocus. Sony has just made the Big Leap Forward, and the A7III got left behind. Sell it quickly before you get embarrassed with that old tech! ;)

@wats0n - It's probably because Sony users are critical thinkers who made the conscientious decision to switch from other brands (such as Canon and Nikon), whereas the Canon and Nikon forums are filled with a lot of Canon and Nikon disciples who will blindly follow these brands to the bitter end, adhering to a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" mantra regarding these brands.

Yes, Fuji has eye AF on their newest cameras but it doesn't even compare to Sony's. Sony's lenses are only "overpriced" compared the Canon ancient EF lenses, many of which are 20+ years old and designed for film cameras lol. The Sony lenses are newly developed and made for mirrorless digital. Check out how absurdly overpriced the new Canon RF lenses are, make Sony's look cheap. Besides, there are 3rd party lenses for Sony FF mirrorless, none for Canon and Nikon.

Sony may be a "consumer electronics" company, but they are far from "integrators". Sony has a professional AV department for a very long time. Also, they have been building image and audio processors, DACs, codecs, digital formats, specialized recording media (and much more) for their Hi-Fi systems, projectors, televisions, professional equipment, etc.

At the end of the day they have extensive knowledge about audio, video and image processing, color science and other stuff. They are more of an iceberg than a television and phone maker. Even Apple is not designing their phone's screens, audio chips, cameras' sensors themselves. Sony has the ability to do that and they actively do it.

From Jan. 28 until the a9 is updated, the a6400 will have the most powerful focusing system money can buy! After that, the a9 will be superior. They will rank 1st and 2nd for autofocus. Until Sony releases a new model, there is no camera in 3rd place. It’s a two horse race, with no competitors in the rearview mirror!

@cesaregalSure - you can always constrain yourself to the simplest and least challenging techniques if your camera is not up to more demanding tracking. Doing so will restrict your ability to compose adaptively with moving subjects and will produce sub-optimal results in many situations. I can see why you'd need to do that if your camera doesn't provide decent tracking capability, but better (and more advanced) technology supports better (and more advanced) technique.

@SilvanBromide I have a Nikon D700. I go to photograph often birds in flight and usually use this system. In the case of replacement of the D700 I'll see to a Nikon D500 or to a Nikon D850 rather than a mirrorless. I give more importance to AF speed than anything else.

@cesaregalNot telling you what to do by any means, and such choices are always very personal, but if it's true that you "give more importance to AF speed than anything else", I suspect you would be better off with the a9. And even more so after the update. I'm guessing you have other reasons for preferring to stay with Nikon dSLRs though - and that's fair enough if it meets other criteria.

@SilvanYes, a9 has an interesting AF speed. Good for birdwatching. I agree. Waiting. Perhaps in the near future other mirrorless will be able to reach actual D500/D850 performances. I hope with improved ergonomy.

Future Photographer: Person holding the camera and press the trigger ... I really love these advances, but it seems a desperate attempt to encourage us to update the equipment, I consider the AF system of my Sony A6000 perfectly capable. We have always dealt with worse AF or ... Without AF! What if ... That a higher rate of success is welcome, but I also like to do something, have something to say, it happens to me as with automatic cars, I just do not see the grace. Of course I feel much more accomplished when I get a perfectly focused shot with my Samyang 35 f1.2 than with any of my AF lenses. I think photography is not about this, it would be interesting for people to worry about taking better photos, taking care of the composition, than worrying about having a super AF that takes 14 shots of your cat in a second with the perfect focus ...

You are contradicting yourself! By having the camera taking care of the AF, THEN the photographer can truly be free and compose. if AF can be done automatically, the photographer can be more creative. AF is the least creative task, why not let the camera do it?!

No thanks. I feel no sense of accomplishment from achieving proper focus with a manual lens. It just gets in the way of capturing the moment. It's like taking a photo of a person and saying, "Hold that pose...hold it, hold it, hold it while I manually focus the lens...ok, I've manually focused. Now I'm going to take the shot."

I would prefer focusing the lens to be totally seemless. The only thing better than intelligent focus tracking of a person is to control AF all with your mind (for example, I can just think "focus on the tree on the left" and the camera would do it.")

Sure, and the fixed lenses also limit your creativity ... Maybe not, maybe they'll empower you, like the MF, maybe it's better to study a good shot or turn around the camera that is on your hands than to take hundreds of absurd shots because the Camera does everything for itselves ... everyone who thinks as they want. And speaking of the photographer of today, the cameras do WB well, auto ISO well and AF well, it is no longer necessary a professional photographer of session never again, whether you take a camera can make a good session or a wedding. Another thing is "artistic" photography. No camera limits creativity, a creative person will make good photos with any camera (in which you have control of the exhibition), the only thing that limits your creativity is the lack of it, and that does not cure any camera. From the respect, ok ?. By the way, I do not have any creativity in case it gives the impression that is what I suggest

To me, the A6000 was impressive simply because it had depth tracking that was on par with a DSLR for the first time. It's object or subject tracking was also impressive for the time but certainly not foolproof.

Things have moved on significantly though.

I shoot MF a lot, I have a large collection of MF lenses and I enjoy them very much but I'm aware of the fact that although I can get action shots by pre-focusing/composing, it puts limits on me. It's like the difference between setting a trap for an animal and hoping it ends up in the right place and having a gun.

You might want to buy just the A6400 and zoom to use for action photos and keep your current system for other uses.

I was exclusively a Canon shooter for work but bought the Nex 6 and later the A6000 for my travel and fun camera. Then I started using the A6000 for jobs too. I'm thinking of adding the A6400 just for this fast focusing.

Well watsOn. One can get good pictures with other brands that's for sure. But at some point technology progresses and lets one easily do something that was difficult or impossible previously. This may be one of those things. How useful this is to each person is up to them. Having a very fast lens keep its paper thin dof field tracking an eye is something I can't do with my Canon 5DIII. But I don't need to do that very often either.

@wats0n - I used to be a Canon DSLR shooter. I got plenty of good pictures back then. But I do have to say that I immensely enjoy these advancements in technology and performance that Sony is bringing. I do think that these things are making me a better, more effective photographer. This isn't just "marketing." Marketing is when a camera company tries to sell a product mostly based on their name value and prior heritage (and religious following), rather than actually bringing tangible advancements. Or even worse, it can be just a BS marketing narrative, like what Nikon did with their Z teasers (“Travel of Light"):https://petapixel.com/2018/07/23/this-is-the-first-teaser-for-nikons-new-mirrorless-camera/

...that tried to make the Z cameras out to be groundbreaking ultra low-light champions.

The green boxes in Rishi's video certainly demonstrate the system is able to correctly identify and track the intended subject. However it will take actual photographs to demonstrate that the camera is able to accurately AF on that subject.

@Barney, identifying subjects and accurately AF on them are two separate elements of an AF system, as this site's various AF tests easily demonstrate. For example, on a given camera I can keep the center AF point on a moving subject, meaning the subject is correctly identified, but that doesn't mean the resulting photo will be in focus.

You can see the viewfinder and check for visual confirmation yourself. It's not just drawing a box around the subject like the Panasonics. On sony cameras if the subject is visually sharp then its in focus.

@Grapejam, a video of a green box in the viewfinder yields no more confirmation of focus than an in-person observation of a green box in the viewfinder. By verifying ourselves I meant using the viewfinder to zoom into the resulting photo to see if it's in critical focus.

@Grapejam, the videos provide visual confirmation that the camera is identifying and tracking the subject as it moves across the FOV. They don't provide visual confirmation that a photograph taken at that instant is or will be in critical focus.

@Horshack I don't think you know how mirrorless cameras work. What you see on the EVF/screen is a direct 1:1 representation of the photo the camera will output. There is no difference between your photos and what you see in this video. Zero. None. An a9 shooting 24mp at 20 fps is just taking 20 frames out of that 120fps feed at a high readout speed.

@Tripler6, the resolution of the EVF on the a6400 is likely 640x480 of actual pixels. Unless you're using the EVF/LCD magnification feature of the camera those pixels are not a 1:1 representation of the image.

What makes you think that Rishi didn't take any pictures during that video?

Even if he didn't (and I bet he did) do you really think he somehow didn't compare focussed images with how the camera tracked? You seem to have no trust in his competence. He's the science editor of the site.

@RubberDials, nothing makes me think Rishi didn't take photos during the video. The article characterizes the system's ability to identify and track a subject and its elements as it moves across the frame, the extent of which is featured in the video. I did not see any qualitative or quantitative characterization of the resulting focus accuracy of what's tracked in the video. As for whether or not he compared actual images taken during the video to verify I cannot say since that is not described in the article. It's not a question of competence or trust but instead what is actually written.

Horshack - fair points, and we'll have full bursts available in our full review. But you can tell even from my video that focus is at the very least pretty well achieved throughout the entire sequence. Blow up the video to full screen and you can even see the drill held out slightly in front of her face as OOF while her face is in-focus.

Furthermore, the green confirmation light at bottom left only drops out a couple times briefly, indicating the camera at least thinks it's achieved and maintained focus for most of the video.

We have some bursts we'll be publishing with the a6400 review, but I'll see if ahead of that I can publish them in this piece. Most shots in bursts are in-focus, though zooming can sometimes trip up a burst. It's not quite a9-level of performance, but we did find that despite the widely reported 'AF point doesn't quite keep up with the subject in bursts', many of the shots end up being in-focus.

@Horshack - Technically speaking, you are wrong. The focus box isn't telling just you what is being tracked. It's telling you what is being tracked AND in focus. If those two conditions are met, the camera gives you the visual indication of it via the green box. This is demonstrated in the video, at 0:52 into the video where you have a focus box that is grey, which tells you WHERE the camera is tracking but that it's NOT in focus. Once the camera dials in the focus, the box turns green and stays green as it continuously keeps that point in focus. So the box tells you where the camera is focusing, and the color (green) tells you whether focus has been achieved.

Oh, come on! Every camera ever has confirmed focus, but at 1:1 it’s a missed shot. Shooting at f1.4 etc and this number increases. To say just because a camera confirms focus in a burst means that the actual shot taken is perfectly focus is completely wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a camera that admits by changing the color of the point that it didn’t hit focus. All of this gets better and better, but AF is not 100% ever.

@T3, btw you were right about the grey vs green box for AF-S center-lock mode. Just tried on my A7rIII - if I engage center-lock on a subject it starts with a grey box, but after focusing it turns green. If I release AF-ON it immediately turns grey again. I don't see this behavior in AF-C expandable flexible spot tracking mode mode though.

It's like people think that cameras never confirm focus while being front or back focused, or that a lens never lags in burst shooting even if the confirmation stays up in the display. Like every lens adjusts a hundred and twenty times a second or something. It depends on how quickly the scene is changing on whether or not the focus square is truly correct.

Horshack has a valid point although examination of the photos is testing both camera AF and the lens' ability to keep up with the camera.Don't get me wrong the video demonstration is highly impressive. And for video this is more than adequate.For stills however, we're picking moments that we want to snap so I know Rishi will be publishing burst results, it doesn't necessarily needs to be a burst but I'd like to see what the critical hit rates are with random single shots from any point in a sequence.Eg. at approx 1:21, the green eye AF square stays on the little girl whilst focus plane moves off. So if green box means the camera 'thinks' its in focus, it obviously isn't always the case. Which is the point Horshack is trying to make I think. But that could be the lag from the lens' ability to keep up and a lens with a faster AF motor might fare better.But half (or more than half) the battle is already won if the camera is able to correctly identify and hold where to AF.

The IR article states that the green box sometimes lags behind, making you think that AF tracking failed, even if it didn't.

"When it comes to actual capture. It is a mixed bag. The camera is far from being an A9 and doesn't seem to have the horsepower to process all the data it is being asked to deal with. The result is an autofocus experience that sometimes misses a moving subject in bright light, mostly misses moving subjects in low light, and provides an inaccurate representation of reality to the shooter due to some pretty bad lag in the viewfinder. "

Cannot wait the new FW updates for A9 and A7r III. Hope I can also receive A9 FW 6 update on time (said summer) before my planned another Africa safari in late August, and don’t mind even a beta version if I could download somewhere for animal eye-AF that will be a great deal. More and more AI based pattern recognition will build in and faster and faster processors that will clearly leave old-school DSLRs including 1Dx II and D5 behind as latter don’t have much room can further improve.

Also wait to see rumored A7000 that should have animal eye-AF built-in.

It works OK for girls sitting in cars!However for dogs chasing frisbees it is utterly useless,(See pictures posted by DPR on January 19) unless you prefer the rear end of your dog in focus.I wonder why they did not show these pictures this time ?

It (Sony AF) is utterly useless for DOG CHASING FRISBEES !Check out the pictures posted by DPR on January 19.You know, the pictures they did not show this time because the dogs rear end is in focus, not the face.So Sony AF is not like "MAGIC" like some fans claim !

The non-stop innovation and applying the latest technology to ALL the new products wherever applicable, regardless it is a high-end or not (from a6400 to a9 in this case) , is what Sony differs from others. Canon and others hold back some for its high end stuff and release little by little to milk the customers.Look what Sony has accomplished in the past 5 years, impressive and well done !

100% that. Even the RX100 point and shoots got the A9 sensor before the A9! XD They also received S-Log, where other brands charge you for the privilege of shooting Log on their highest end cameras. And now they even shoot 24fps RAW for an extended interval with OSPDAF!

Then there are the A6xxx cameras that got full sensor readout 4K, which many brands STILL can't do 3 years later, along with 1080p120. Oh yeah, and the RX100s have been able to shoot 1000fps for 4 years now. ;) The list could go on forever...

I think Canon will use a Sony apsc sensor for their Eos R apsc camera and potentially license the af tech, but would they need new processors then? Either way the Eos R apsc just may have a sony sensor inside.

Canon stuck in DPAF that used to be sort of innovation. But DPAF is not best known in AF-C although great for AF-S and video AF. In addition DPAF also impairs DR and have double amount of pixels to deal with that limits buffer depth and cleaning speed. All other companies now use hybrid on-sensor PDAF+CDAF, so interesting to see how Canon moving forward.

Sony AF impresses here. As a dual Nikon and Canon shooter my gut feel is that Sony have a clear AF advantage over both Canikon for three reasons:

1) They have spent more developmental resources on facial and eye recognition algorithms.

2) They employ a faster sensor read-out architecture to feed the data required for those AF algorithms to work.

3) They use more powerful onboard camera processors than Canikon do to run their AF computations.

Canikon beware! Sony now has a decisive advantage in AF over you that is relevant for portrait photography. Once they address the remaining weaknesses they have in camera ergonomics and color science they will be unstoppable.

They also simply had more time to work it out. The first A7 in 2013 already had Eye-AF. It was slow, AF-S only, unreliable etc etc... For the past 6 years they had a lot of time perfecting it. Canikon really are in an uphill battle here.

@fprime This update also updates colour for the a9. I assume the other cameras will follow, take a look sometime. Yes they could have nicer ergonomics but a grip solves most of my gripes; I'm not going to complain about holding a tiny camera with a little lens on it just because it doesn't mold to my hand. The only thing left for sony to do is prove they're reliable under hash conditions

My 10 your old Panasonic G1, the worlds 1st mirrorless system camera had face detect AF and my 2012 Olympus E-PL5 also had Eye-AF with auto choose or right or left eye (a function first coming on Sony soon).

So Sony wasn't first but they sure have perfected the tech the last few years.

But the start with the 2013 A7 was not impressing from a camera function perspective. When I compare it to my Olympus E-M1mkI which came almost the same month as the A7, the E-M1 is so much more a complete and good working camera.

The only thing the A7 had as an upside vs the best mirrorless cameras of the day was the FF-sensor.

It took until the A7RII in mid 2015. That was the 1st Sony FF mirrorless camera that started to feel well rounded enough as a camera, and the sensor was just out of this world. So I got one for landscapes and pensioned my Olympus E-M5mkII for that purpose.

Then the A9 came in spring 2017. It was so good in speed and AF that I could pension my E-M1 as well.

My point was that others (like Panasonic and Olympus) where a lot before Sony in 2013 in almost every area except sensor size. And that makes Sonys achievement even bigger.

Though Sony started in APS-C already 2010.

And Nikon 1 is from 2011 and Canon EOS-M from 2012 so they have had time to work on their AF stuff as well but obviously can't or weren't interested to get it to work as well.

There might be another explanation why Sony is best at the moment in this area, and that is that they are the leading sensor manufacturer as well. Everything in a mirrorless camera is based on harvesting the data stream from the sensor and use it for different purpuses. And the technology winner in the future is the one that does that the best.

lattesweden, yes, Nikon has played in the mirrorless AF arena for quite some time considering that Nikon 1 launched all the way back in 2011. That's specifically why I didn't list "time" as a Sony advantage for their current dominance in AF. Nikon and Canon have had equal share of it.

Interestingly, you'll note that the OSPDAF in Nikon 1 is highly regarded for its time whereas the Nikon Z cameras AF is widely derided. I believe this is because the AF data stream coming off the Nikon 1's 10MP sensors is/was much easier for Nikon to manage than the 46MP generated by the Nikon Z7 now.

This all points back to the need for Canikon to use better sensor read-out technology and more powerful onboard processors. Better AF firmware can only do so much with these legacy parts that Canon and Nikon have tried to bin from their DSLR lines.

The biggest achievement for Sony was that last year, after so many years of sabotaging mirrorless, Canon gave up, and started churning out a completely new professional mirrorless system. As for lenses Canon is in really good shape; but as for sensor and image processing electronics, which is key to mirrorless, I think Canon is far behind Sony. I am an EOS R user, too, I paid for "my ticket", I am not an outsider.

Olympus took 2 of the processors from the E-M1mkII to build the AF-tracking and other features like hand held sensor shift in the E-M1X. That probably was a quicker route than redesigning a new more powerful one from scratch.

I guess CaNikon also could use that method. But it drives prize and power consumption up, which is why the E-M1X has two batteries. But it is still not A9 good. So probably the best is to re-engineer a new one.

But as with everything, no idea to overpower one part, the whole chain of components must hang together. So also the sensor must be able to cope with the needed data stream. And best is also if the stream never is interrupted like from a mechanical shutter, so again something the A9 with the non blackout e-shutter is unique with.

As you already mention, Canon seems to like to reuse current DSLR sensors. The new low budget R camera that is coming very soon seems to reuse the 6DmkII sensor, which isn't the best regarded.

I really wanted the L-mount to fly since I like Panasonic cameras, but so far the system seems not to be able to compete with Sony (which I use nowadays). The DFD AF tech is not up to Sony class and everything in that system is too heavy and too expensive from what one can see now and to the end of 2020, which is how far the roadmap goes.

I shot Nikon between 1982-2004. I like Nikon still. But the Z lenses sofar has not impressed and it was the same in their late DSLR F-line lenses from my perspective. Not that they are bad, just not exciting from my view. The DSLR bodys like the D5, D850 etc impressed me though. The Z-bodys are a mix for me. Especially the AF seems so so. The coming Z-lenses and bodys maybe lifts things.

Canons late DSRL (EF) and R lenses impressed me. Their late DSRL and R bodys not so much. Especially on the sensor and AF side.

Of course is not everything perfect with Sony FE, but for the time it seems that is the system that fits me the best.

I completely agree with you guys insightful comment. I return EOS R since it's not a significant upgrade to my current camera. It's more churning for Canon.

Their new lenses look great but it will be expensive and I'm not sure if it's worth the price premium over Sigma or Tamron. I might leave Canon sooner than later. Hopefully Sony deliver A7 with 5.6 million dot and 16 bit sensor. Tamron is also rumor to release 70-200 2.8. That will be the final blow to Canon for me.

@latte I love your relaxed, smart reasoning, you must be really experienced. After I used my A9 for nearly a year, I had the impression, that I had the chance to own "the best camera ever invented and can be made", and coincidentally, I decided to give me a long break from photography and videography. Now, after nearly year of pause I want to restart refreshed; I've never owned a Canon digital camera; so, I decided to pick an EOS R; in nearly every way it is way more inferior to any 3rd generation Sony cameras, and it cannot even hold a candle to the Z cameras either from technical perspective. The only reason I picked it because it is made by Canon, and it meets the absolute minimum (primitive) specs I wanted; the 1.8x 4K crop with 1.5 stops of light-loss, huh, it's really brutal, very hard to swallow. Nevertheless, I'll buy an A6400, when available, sure with a Speed Booster, and thereafter the first Sony FF with unlimited 4K S-Log/HLG recording time.

@latte, if you are after your Canon period, I fully understand. I've just started my Canon period; I think it's going to last at least for a year. I used to have a Nikon Df, too, it was really a great experience, but never again another DSLR. I think Sony/Canon should be enough to me for a while. I hope, I am not "beating a dead horse" (Canon)? It was a pleasure to share thoughts with you, Friend.

@bokehmon When I bought my EOS R, I was always pretty sure that what I am doing is completely unreasonable. But, I am a mirrorless fan, and I want to give a try to Canon's flagship mirrorless. I don't really believe, honestly, that Canon will ever (be able to) improve significantly the performance and severe limitations of the EOS R; it never happened during the past 5 years, just think about it for a minute. The Dual Pixel system in 70D was the last innovation, I remember. Still, I want to experiment with EOS R (since 2013, 70D), it really meets my absolute minimalist expectations, and it is a Canon.

I've been shooting since 1980. I have had one item from each brand with a few exceptions by now. Despite me being from Sweden, I have never had anything from Hasselblad. Maybe I should buy a lens cap so I at least can fulfill that! :-)

There is no real reason to go chasing brands. One shall get the stuff that works for what one wants to do.

Also not jump ship to soon. But do it when there is a big enough leverage.

I was shooting Olympus m4/3 and had to shot multi frame HDR to overcome the lower DR when shooting sunsets which I like to do.

When the A7RII came with the fantastic sensor I waited some time and when there was a really good deal on it, I got it with just a wide angle zoom as my sunset rig and continued with m4/3 for the rest. (I have since migrated almost fully).

In the analogue days I got me a light Ricoh compact camera that had remote control and used for shooting selfies when paragliding with the camera velcrod up in the glider pointing down at me.

@Miki Nemeth, I agree with you. Canon do certain really well in term of usability (EVF, ergonomic, fully articulate LCD, fully touch screen) but I think Sony will close that gap soon.

I just hate Canon always segmenting the market and gimped on features and overpriced. I was disappointed in Canon 5D4, 6DII, EOS R. I wouldn't be surprised if their EOS R Pro will underdeliver and over price again

@bokeh Please, don't talk about EVF on the EOS R to me; it is dead slow, when I am panning even slowly, it is totally jittery, like a stop motion movie. Don't talk to me about the fully articulated screen, either, please, it's a gimmick, the tilting screen on Sony's are at least as OK. Ergonomics on EOS R? Have you tried the touch-bar, just to name one? Has anyone noticed how noisy the focusing motors on all Canon USM lenses (for video)? Like rattling tanks. All the Sony lenses are super silent even the cheapest kit lens the PZ1650. Dual pixel AF tracking is about as snappy as Sony had three years ago in A5100 (I still have one). All of these are myths, exactly this was the reason, I wanted to give a try me myself and I bought an EOS R. Don't believe any youtube "reviewers", all of them are lying to generate Amazon clicks; stop watching them. They cannot even tell the difference between megabit per second and megabyte per second.

It's from my own personal experience. I used both EOS R and Sony A7III, A7RIII, and A9. I usually watch review from sensible reviewer not shills.

Despite all those flaws, I would consider Sony A7SIII or A9r with the new EVF and sensor. I'm tire of Canon gimping features and disappointments. Their RF lenses are very expensive. Not sure it's worth it

Thank you for this review - there is a lot of misinformation online about a6400 autofocus and this Rishi article is a relief. And something really amazing: after two years now, a9 still miles ahead of anything Nikon or Canon released.

Sony is really taking a major leap forward in AF technology. This looks even more impressive than the 3D tracking I use in the Nikon D7200. It's only going to get better with each future camera release. I'm definitely keeping an eye on Sony. I do wonder what their supposed upcoming APS-C E-mount "flagship" camera will bring. Hmmmm....... ('_' ) ??

I'm guessing the footage seen is from an external monitor/recorder recording the HDMI out while the camera is in photo mode, thus needing the shutter button to be half-pressed continuously (I think EyeAF needed to be held down, too, before this tracking feature was implemented). My request is for the tracking mode to be switched on without holding the button down; just a single press and release. This way, it can be used on a gimbal.

That's exactly how the new Tracking AF works in video. You tap on your subject, and it tracks that subject in the frame. Apparently works better in video than stills (on A6400). The old Center Lock-on AF for video is dead. Hurrah!

As a fellow Fuji user, I wouldn't hold my breath. Fuji has a long way to go just to catch up to eye AF. I don't think they have processors for it in current cameras. Sony said that every autofocus point is always active, they just use the none selected ones to constantly build a depth map of the scene. That takes serious processing power.

My Fujifilm X-T3 AF tracking is pretty darn sticky! It's Face/Eye AF is excellent. New FW in April promises improvements beyond what it currently does, which was unimaginable a couple of years ago. With new FW will it be as good as this? Not sure, but bottom line is Fuji's newest AF is awful good and will get better even still.

I used to take HS football photos for local newspapers (circa 1978) with a Nikon F, Kodak Tri-X (pushed to 800 in Acufine of course) using the crappy Nikkor 300mm F4.5 (penta, not knowing crap about CA at the time) and a Vivitar 283 flash, out to mid-field, with manual focus, by manually focusing where I expected the action to be at its peak. I do not recall many out of focus shots. I do not rely on the auto-focus of my digital kit for peak action.

I truly admire your skills. I look back at the iconic sports photos of the past & marvel at the difficulty involved in getting those sharp shots at the decisive moment. Same with the old famous war photographers -- speed, accuracy, & artistry under duress with all manual equipment.

I shot 32,000 frames in high school 1969-72 with a Nikon F Photomic FTn, 50mm 1.4 & 135 2.8, I started with a Vivitar 281?, but upgraded to a Honeywell Strobonar 800 with 510 volt battery ($20.00 each). I purchased Plus-X & Tri-X in 100' spools & rolled my own. How did we ever get any good photos shooting at 1 frame every 2-5 seconds with manual everything & 36 pic's before rewind & reload. I had a very good hit rate for focus & exposure, I now have a D750 & Df, I use the Df the most & just earlier today.The school paper & yearbook had to pay me for photos, the students & staff purchased 1000's of 5x8 & 8x10 B&W prints, the only job I had during High School. I kept my negatives & have scanned 1/2 of them so far for a Facebook page I started for my class for our 40 reunion. I've got photos of parties & school life. Most people comment that it's like a time machine. Thanks for the flashback to the Good Old Days! Today a Monkey can take a correctly focused & exposed photo.

I hear the claim a lot that autofocus isn't required if you're really good at manual focus. I would love to see an actual demonstration of this. Say, chasing a toddler around the house for a couple minutes, like the video above, but shooting stills. Compare that to say, autofocus on a Canon Rebel XT with a kit lens from 2005, and see who gets more in focus shots.

Pre focusing worked for everyone from sports shooters to train spotters but I really don't see what pre focusing and waiting for the subject to come into your pre defined "zone" has to do with reliably tracking subjects as they constantly move towards and away from you?

It's like saying auto metering is useless because you used to use the Sunny 16 rule successfully.

I thought last year's Sony autofocus was already supposed to be amazing, simple and super-reliable. It is only with this update that we hear it described as unreliable, frustrating and headache-y. Somehow the new-new thing flips the previously new thing from today's wonder to yesterday's chore.

The AF has been reliable for a long time. The object tracking was good. It’s not the AF that’s improving. It’s the subject identification that’s improving.. But the bar is being raised every year. Only you, clinging to the past, don’t see the bar getting higher..

Of course I see the bar getting higher. I just marvel at how yesterday's tracking is just now revealed as "often unreliable". I never heard any reviewer call it "often unreliable" a few months ago. If you recently bought the A7iii or A7Riii thinking you got some amazing tracking (as per reviews), you may now be surprised to learn that what you bought was in fact "often unreliable".

From the A9 review “Every now and then during these shooting events, Lock On appeared a mind of its own and jumps to another subject, but more often than not it returned to it, or stuck with it throughout. In the few instances it failed we quickly switched to Wide or a single point to try and rescue the shot, which is as easy as a button press thanks to the a9's extensive customization.”

No one said it was perfect. It has always been very effective. But not perfect. The new FW isn’t going to make it perfect either. But I suspect it’s going to be a lot closer. Plus the intelligence to automatically switch to the eye and back to the face or object if no eye detected while at the same time sticking with the subject you want is something no other camera can do... anywhere.

You can keep poo-poo'ing this technology, but everyone else pretty much sees it for what it is. Very few negative commenters on this article...

Too bad it looks like a7iii will not get real time tracking (it will get only real time eye af, animal af, imaging edge mobile and intervalometer) in firmware update as announced, only a9 will get it (a6400 has it now).

@yakeTracking has kinda been a separate part of autofocus in reviews because only Nikon had anything you'd actually rely on up until now. You don't see anyone saying the 1dxmk2 has poor autofocus but it's tracking isn't good enough for critical work. The a9 and 1dxmk2 both have great autofocus, but the tracking has lagged behind Nikon since forever until now

Did the A7III's 89% score reflect those complaints about AF performance before today's big leap forward? Some quotes from the A7III review:

"...once you initiate tracking on a subject, a cloud of autofocus boxes appears over your subject and will stick to it tenaciously as it moves about the frame.""...Eye AF will reliably track the eye of your subject that's closest to the camera, ensuring a sharp shot even at F1.4.""Like the a9 and the a7R III, it's incredibly 'sticky' to the person you initiated on, rarely jumping off to someone else in the scene.""Eye AF still impressive...""...the a7 III performs with a very-nearly 100% hit rate with Dan riding straight at the camera...""at 10fps on the a7 III, images throughout the burst were almost universally accurately focused."

In the conclusion's "What we don't", no complaints about Lock-on AF or Eye AF performance. It was, to quote: the "new benchmark for full frame cameras". Seems like all that praise just got downgraded.

EyeAF has been flawless on existing bodies. You are confusing EyeAF and lock-on. And the guy riding straight to the camera is the easiest test for subject tracking (but not necessarily AF). It basically doesn’t even require tracking! you don’t pay close enough attention, and you apparently haven’t used the Sony’s in question to understand the different modes and what’s what. You tr to talk like you know, but you don’t. And that’s clear to the people that do.

@MikeRan, It did sound like eye AF was flawless ... last year. Many rave reviews across the Internet said so. But now that there's a big leap forward, it's OK to say that eye AF was frustrating for common situations, like birthday parties and weddings. Yesterday's benchmark is today's unreliable.

Yake -The concept of progress demands ever changing baselines. We pointed out all the flaws previously, but it was still the best system at the time. Hence the high score and comments. But the caveats were there, I even link to the a9 Eye AF faltering in this very article. Would you like that link again? Here you go:

https://youtu.be/SyaOjhx_mK0?t=80

And I linked to how Lock-on AF was unreliable in this very article, in this video here: https://youtu.be/wb6BJQYHB7E?t=5

Back in the a7R II review we pointed out in a video how erratic Eye AF was. These have been published for years.

Then Sony made more progress, so the bar's been raised, and that's what everything will be compared to.

In the future, our new scoring system will automatically downgrade the score of all cameras once there's a new camera with better AF, or IQ, or what have you. It'll be more sophisticated, in a use-case based manner, but you get the picture.

Not on our site, where I posted this video showing even the a9 tripping up: https://youtu.be/SyaOjhx_mK0?t=80

Please don't generalize reviewers. We've been pointing out every manufacturers' flaws forever. It's actually one of the reasons products improve - camera companies take our, as well as many photographers', feedback seriously.

Omg. That toddler video sold me (a doting grandparent) on the necessity of this system. I've struggled to get good sharp toddler pictures for several years, trying various AF settings & speeds, adding flash, whatever. Toddlers easily defeat my camera, & I've been resigned to a low keeper rate. I doubt very much Sony would want to market their new AF tracking system as "Perfect for Grandma!", but that's exactly what it is.

My two year old grandson has made me a better photographer and taught me to work with random motion! I used to work for newspapers back in the 1970's and loved sports photography...at least sports tend to follow a pattern and we, the photographer, can anticipate where the action will be and focus there....kids, are never still, and move unpredictably!

Haha, they should at least market it to parents who are increasingly just using their smartphones, but I understand why it's not in their main marketing messaging :)

I'll add a note to the article, but 'Real-time tracking' is not coming to the a7/R III. They likely don't have the processing power? Only Real-ish Eye AF. I assume this means it'll work similarly to what you see here, but instead of reverting to 'general' subject tracking (green box with vertical lines on either side), it'll probably revert to the less reliable Lock-on AF. But at least Lock-on is pretty darn good on the a7 III.

Basically this means that the a7 III and a7R III will continue to use the less sophisticated tracking system that does not use pattern recognition, nor the updated color/distance algorithms. That's my understanding.

Too bad, this makes me now want to wait for the a7 IV :) (assuming that it would get a processor power update to the level of the A6400) (in addition to updates to the dated EVF or rear display, that would be nice to see in a A7 IV as well of course).

Since these technologies are alrady there, Sony could update the A7 iii immediately w/o noticable development effort or time. But they won't. The A7 iii is too much of a cash cow right now, so they may probably want to extend its exploitation a further year or so. The more people will own a A7 iii by then, the more people will consider (and pay for) an upgrade to a A7 IV once it is there, which is good for Sony :)

(but a pity for those which would like an A7 with the A6400 capabilities right now, including processor-intensive "real-time tracking", either in its own right, or in its function to complement eye AF and enhance its value & usability).

Rishi, How reliable is the tracking on the A6400 vs A9? What you are showing is the camera tracking, but how about when you start reeling off shots? AF point lag (in the A6400) is quite discernible when shooting, so what is the hit rate?

@flying I'm going to take a stab at that and say it's going to have to be pretty dark for it not to work. All ML cameras are accurate when they acquire their target, they don't suffer from front and back focusing like slrs. What you'll probably find is fps might drop instead of missing, unless you set it to release priority from balanced

As for burst hit rate, I want to investigate further before commenting, but can at least say I was impressed, but not as impressed as the a9.

A6400 also sometimes jumped to other nearby subjects crossing your main subject, which the a9 did not do. We'll have the full examples and analyses in the final a6400 review; this article is more about the tech, so naturally drawn more from my experience with the a9.

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